


This video is private.

by vials



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, literally not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26990188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: Tim still makes videos. In the dead of night, when he can't sleep.Except now, they're only addressed to one person.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	This video is private.

Tim still makes videos.

In the dead of night, when he can’t sleep, or when he wakes up from something that ensures the last thing he wants to do is go back to bed, he makes videos. It’s a comfort thing; something that feels familiar. There is nobody else to bear witness.

He uploads them, but they are all private. He thinks that perhaps one day he might want to share them, if things go wrong again, if they become the last testament to who he was and what he’s seen. Other times he thinks that’s just familiarity, too – sitting up in the dead of night, watching the video render, the bright glow of the screen the only thing lighting the room. It’s the same reason he sometimes books into hotels for the night, despite not needing to. Sometimes he needs the familiarity. It’s strange, how the most terrible time of his life can be such a comfort, if he only focuses on the person who was with him at the time.

He sits, and he smokes, and he watches the video upload. Then he goes through his usual routine, checking and double-checking that the video is definitely set to private; making sure there are no mistakes. How long until there are more videos on this channel uploaded by him than by Jay? It’s an inevitable milestone he doesn’t want to contemplate. He feels heavy. The night stretches on forever, and he wishes he had something do – somebody to do it with. How could he possibly miss those days? He wishes they had never happened. It was better, he thought, to never know what it’s like to not be alone. It would be easier to deal with if he didn’t know that somebody out there had understood, and now they were gone.

The video has uploaded, and it’s private. He makes sure of that twice more, and then lets it play. He’s never been comfortable seeing himself on camera, and certainly not within the all-too familiar surroundings of YouTube. Bad memories, bad associations. Finding things out about himself at the same time as the rest of the world, realising beyond all doubt that it was all real. Had he been happier, not being sure if it was real? He didn’t know. He certainly hadn’t slept any better.

The footage had been filmed right where he was sitting now, the camera mounted on the shelf above his desk, Tim sitting in a loose T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and his hair wild, straight from sleep. He had bolted out of bed without even thinking much about what he was doing, but Tim is used to that by now. Half the time he doesn’t realise he’s filming himself until he becomes aware of his own voice talking.

The picture blurs slightly, focuses itself. On the screen Tim reaches out, adjusts the angle, his hand briefly covering the picture. Then it’s gone, and Tim can be seen sitting slouched on the chair, lighting a cigarette with sluggish movements. Behind him the foot of the bed is lit orange in the soft glow of the small lamp, and it’s the only light in the room. It softens Tim’s features, the more angular shape of his jaw, the evidence that he hasn’t been eating. It does nothing for the shadows under his eyes, however. It makes those worse.

On the screen, Tim speaks. His voice is hoarse – he doesn’t use it much these days. He doesn’t look at the lens as he talks. He looks everywhere else instead: the surface of the desk, up into the corners of the room, the burning end of the cigarette.

“I dreamed about you again.”

It’s all he can say before he has to stop. Several seconds pass; Tim takes a long drag on the cigarette, and there, barely noticeable, is a slight tremor in his hand.

“It’s always the same dream,” Tim continues. “Always. You’re always so worried about me. So _concerned_. You ask me if things are alright now. You’re so urgent about it. ‘ _Are things alright? Are they better now?’_ You look so _hopeful_.”

The cigarette again; this time Tim smokes for almost a minute before bringing himself to speak. The Tim watching, numb in his chair, does the same – the two of them smoking, one on the screen, the other watching, the silence equally as heavy.

On screen, Tim shifts slightly.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he says, his voice blank. “I don’t know what to say. I’m always silent, and you just stare at me until I wake up. Like you’re hoping things will change somehow. Before I wake up, you always look so sad.”

Tim laughs quietly enough that it’s barely picked up; even so, the sound is obviously wet around the edges, and it’s a long time before he speaks again.

“There you are,” he says, “still covered in blood, your hand pressed to a—to a _hole in your side_ , and you’re asking after _me_. You’re worried about _me_.”

Another long pause, and then on screen Tim shakes his head, reaches over to the camera, and the video goes blank.

_Play again?_

The lamp is off now, the screen the only light in the room. Tim stares at the bright white of it until his eyes blur.

_Are things alright? Are they better now?_

He reaches out, closes the laptop. The fan whirrs briefly louder, and then stops. With the light gone, only the glowing end of his cigarette is visible.

Tim’s cheeks are damp, but it doesn’t matter so much in the dark.


End file.
